On December 7th, in a bizarre and unsolicited e-mail, Heart Corporation / Heart English School carelessly revealed the private e-mail addresses of numerous people - many of whom appear to have never actually worked for the company or, in the case of the union member who passed this information along, left the company several years ago.

As we have previously mentioned ("Privacy Protection: Companies - Think Before You Click"), negligence towards confidential information is an ongoing issue - an issue that should be treated as seriously as a company should treat the private details of the people that it comes into contact with.

Of course, mistakes happen, and human error is inevitable. That much can be said for anything.

However, when you work at a company that, for all intents and purposes, deals with "human resources", there should be a higher priority given to the care and management of the private information that people have trusted you with. In addition, companies have an obligation to ensure that data protection is given the respect that it deserves, and the respect that data protection laws expect such things to be given.

Mistakes happen, but they shouldn't happen out of someone's inattention to their own job. "Mistakes happen" will not un-reveal someone's private e-mail address. Saying that "nobody is perfect" will not stop the inevitable junk e-mail that may result from unscrupulous parties getting hold of someone's inadvertently revealed contact details (as has happened to one of our members, who now finds himself receiving recruitment spam from companies in Singapore and the Philippines).

In this instance, it is reasonable to assume that this mistake may have been caused by a technical error, or someone's inexperience with coding language. You can take a look at the (again, unsolicited) e-mail, yourself, and draw your own conclusions.

Without commenting on the content of that e-mail, let it serve as another cautionary tale about the importance of thinking before you click. This time, it was less than a hundred e-mails - but next time, it could be thousands. All it takes is a careless "click".

Should Heart Corporation / Heart English School (voluntarily) apologise for their mistake, we will update this article to reflect that acknowledgement of error.

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Has your company leaked your e-mail address? Has it had any negative consequences? Are you concerned about a lack of privacy at your place of work? Let us know about it at:

union(@)generalunion.org

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